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How hard can you write? How long can you write for your voice to be heard? What are you expecting from your writing? What will you do when the unexpected happens? These are a few of the many questions I encountered the first day I picked up a pen to write.
I have been writing my brains out for the past 10 years because I value my knowledge and love sharing ideas that either nourish people’s souls or impact people’s lives.
I made it a goal to add value to human existence or at least to people’s lives but it has been 10 years now and what have I achieved so far? It feels like a void within me. I can keep lying to myself about how hard it is to write but frankly, It’s a freaking hard pass and unless you are writing for passion or purpose, it’s almost impossible to continue writing.
How hard can you write?
This is the first question I had to deal with the first day I started writing. It was the 29th of April 2015, nine days before that day my beloved dad was laid to rest and the burial was concluded.
Everyone has retreated to their various destinations, leaving me, my siblings, and my mother (a widow who is still in agony for her lost husband) alone in the once-crowded house.
I stared at my mother as she moaned in the pain of loss, I wanted to console her but what can I say to make her feel better? You have to start somewhere, right? I picked up my pen, drew close a piece of paper, and started writing.
I wrote a poem that day, it was the first piece of writing I completed. You can read the revised version of the poem by following the link at the end of this article.
Why revised and not the original copy? Don’t worry all the pieces of information in the original copy are intact in the revised version except for some personal details that can’t be shared.
As I started the first paragraph, words filled my brain and it was too hard to write it orderly, It could have been better if I made it as a speech than to write it down but I can’t make a speech to my agonizing mother, so the first question pops up, how hard can you write?
I had to prove to myself that I could write the best I could, so I started writing and arranging the lines for momentum to kick in. And that takes me to the second question I had to deal with in my first piece of writing.
How long can you write for your voice to be heard?
With the amount of words jam-packed in my mind, I could have written a book and not a poem but one of my dad’s pieces of advice hits me, “In life, focus more on quality over quantity.” This writing is about him anyway so It won’t hurt if I took his advice for that piece of writing. So I wrote a poem instead.
Aside from that day, his advice on quality over quantity has helped me in some aspects of my life. A small piece of quality writing can go a long way over three pages full of junk. Not only with writing but in many aspects of life. It’s not about how long but how valuable the writing is. And that leads us to my third question.
What are you expecting from your writing?
Your writing expectations are what fuels the quality of your writing. If you are expecting something huge, you have to deliver something of equal value. Your expectations may be in money or impact but if you want to make lots of money or become influential with writing, then you have to make every one of your pieces a masterpiece.
In my case, my expectations were to console my mother and to bring peace and tranquility to her broken heart, so my writing has to be of the best kind of quality for my message to reach her heart.
Did you meet your expectations? You may ask. Well, I could have but there are many messages sent that haven’t been delivered. And that leads to my last question.
What will you do when the unexpected happens?
It’s our choice to expect but our expectations sometimes are not heeded or met. We aim and dream but our dreams might just be a dream. We hope but sometimes our hopes lavish in the void of our hearts.
But what will you do about it? Will you stop at nothing until your dreams become your reality? Will you let the universe decide your fate or will you mold your destiny? Will you blame the mother of luck for being so injustice or will you face the reality and build your luck?
Here’s where the toughest decisions are made.
This last question may sound simple but it can turn your whole life around.
In my case, before I could finish my piece, my mother had already consoled herself. I found her in the kitchen cooking one of my delights. Was there a need to go any further with my piece since my message had been received without her reading it? Secondly, I was already salivating at the aroma coming from the kitchen.
I saved away the piece of writing in my journal undelivered to date, I hope to deliver it someday. I’m only been honest, you don’t have to do the same.
Today marks the 10th anniversary of my writing journey. I hope you learned a thing or two from my adventure.
I have no idea how long you have been writing but if this article resonates with you in any way, your claps, highlights, and opinions in the comment section are appreciated.
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